1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and particularly to an electrical connector having a spacer assembled to an insulative housing thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electrical connectors are being made more and more light, thin, short and small in order to comply with the trend toward miniaturization of the electronic device in the electronic field and related components of the electrical connectors are in turn made more and more light, thin, short and small as a result. On the other hand, numbers of electrical contacts of each electrical connector are increased to meet the present high speed, large quantity and broad bandwidth signal transmission requirements in the electronic field.
In, such a situation, the pitch between every two adjacent electrical contacts of an electrical connector is considerably reduced and cause many problems in manufacturing and assembling processes thereof. A dielectric spacer is sometimes provided to. aid in retaining the high-densely arranged electrical contacts and to align exactly the electrical contacts to solder pads (in case of surface mounting technology being used) or through holes (where through hole technology is utilized) on a printed circuit board to which the electrical connector is mounted.
The dielectric spacer is usually assembled to an insulative housing of the electrical connector. However, the conventional dielectric spacer is apt to displace with respect to an insulative housing of the electrical connector and is possibly to fall out of its retention to the insulative housing, which is obviously undesired in view of the signal transmission quality of the electrical connector.
Therefore, an electrical connector having an improved dielectric spacer is desired to overcome the disadvantages of the prior art.
A major object of the present invention is to provide anelectrical connector having a dielectric spacer reliably assembled to an insulative housing thereof.
An electrical connector in accordance with the present invention comprises an insulative housing, a plurality of electrical contacts mounted in the insulative housing and a dielectric spacer. The insulative housing comprises a mounting portion and a mating portion projecting forwardly from the mounting portion. The mounting portion has a pair of opposite arms extending rearwardly at two opposite ends thereof and three recesses recessed from a bottom surface of a rear end thereof. A pair of blocks protrude downwardly from the bottom surface beside two opposite sides of a rear portion of each recess. Each arm comprises a step portion in an inward face thereof and a cutout at a rear and lower end thereof.
The dielectric spacer comprises a generally flat plate body and a pair of latches extending upwardly from front portions of opposite ends of the plate body. The plate body comprises a plurality of through holes defined therein for mounting portions of the electrical contacts extending therethrough and retained thereby, three retainers protruding from a front end thereof to be partially pressed into the recesses and retained by the blocks, and a pair of extensions extending laterally and outwardly at rear portions of the opposite ends thereof to extend into the cutouts of the arms. Each latch has an outward hook section at an upper end thereof to engage with the step portion of the arm.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the present embodiment when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.